I was born with naturally curly hair and it has taken me 23 years to figure out how to get a handle on it. In high school, I would straighten my hair almost everyday just because I didn't know how to deal with it when it was curly, other than throwing it up in a bun. I've had more Britney Spears circa 2007 moments of temptation than I'd like to admit. But in recent years, after taking certain medications that cause hair loss and bleaching/dying my hair, I've been trying to work with my natural curls, rather than applying heat to my hair out of laziness.

When I bleached my hair blonde last fall, I decided I would try to embrace my curls and minimize my heat usage, because the bleaching process was already damaging enough. One day back in March, a fellow curly-headed friend suggested that I try going one month without adding heat to my hair and then writing about it. I was getting ready to go to China the next week and I would be meeting with important Chinese media companies, so my reply to her was "I will, but I can't right now because I have to look professional in China." My response to her was so telling of how women view their naturally curly hair; it's hard to tame, which means it can't be displayed in a professional setting.

The trial month kind of happened by accident; at the beginning of May, I was moving out of Indiana and spending a couple of weeks in New Jersey before moving out to LA at the end of the month. I didn't really plan it, but by the time I was two weeks in, I realized that I hadn't used heat on my hair, so I continued to abstain from heat. (Since this trial month wasn't planned ahead of time, I don't have any before and after pictures of my hair alone, but I have pictures that I took throughout the month, so I've arranged them in chronological order):

I realized that the longer my hair didn't have heat applied to it, the better it looked. So at first, my curls were dry and still recovering from having heat applied to them; they looked more like waves that started getting curly a couple inches from the root, rather than the kinky curls I was born with, that start at the root.

I bought leave-in conditioners and different styling products to figure out what works best for my curls, because the thing about curls is that they are not one size fits all; different types of curls and textures require different types of treatment.

My favorite styling gel is Not Your Mother's Plump for Joy Thickening Hair Lifter. This really helped me get my bouncy curls back after heat damage and thickened the texture of my hair so that my curls were not stringy waves. It also didn't harden my hair or give the appearance that there was gel in it, so my curls looked and felt soft.

The main reason I never wanted to bother working with my natural hair is because it's dry and frizzy. I have the opposite problem of most girls; after a few days of not washing my hair, my hair gets drier and frizzier, rather than greasy and oily, so the best way for me to maintain moisture in my spirally curls is to use Marula Oil Replenishing Treatment Mist by Exotic Oils. What I like about this specific brand is that it hydrates my curls without making them look too shiny or leaving grease on my fingertips when I run my fingers through my hair.

By the end of the month, I realized that having curly hair doesn't have to be a hassle, I just needed to find the products and techniques that work for me. Since the end of my trial month, I've applied heat to my hair, but I don't feel as though I'm depending on my straightening or curling iron as much as I used to; now, I just use those tools when I feel like changing my hair up, rather than as a necessity. I feel comfortable with my natural hair so much so that I actually prefer to keep it natural rather than modify it with heat. Since starting my summer internships, I've gone to work with my naturally curly hair and I haven't questioned the professionalism of it (and neither has anyone else). Embracing and loving my curly hair is something I've been working on for almost a year, but going a month without heat really helped strengthen and restore my curls to their natural beauty.